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Leeks Whole

A creamy, buttered leek dish finished with egg yolks and served with fried sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Leeks Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the leeks into small pieces.

  2. Melt a lump of butter in a saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the chopped leeks, a pinch of flour, pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little cream.

  2. Simmer together for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in 2 egg yolks.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried sippets.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Leek + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together848 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Form the main bulk and, when cooked gently, add a mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries flavour into the leeks.
Flour
Its starch thickens the cream as the mixture simmers.
Cream
Supplies moisture and body, forming the sauce around the leeks.
Egg yolks
Set with gentle heat to thicken and enrich the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in 2 egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so they can curdle or turn grainy if the mixture is too hot. Stir them in gently, off the boil, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of scrambling.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, cream, egg):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Leekthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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